StarBound

Because I like making lists, and gathering info so people don't have too look all over, I decided to combine all the info I can find that has been mentioned at this point. Ill keep it updated as best I can. As far as validity, I will only be adding things that have been said directly by Devs during chats, or on the forum/tweets, etc. But from my experience, as always, don't take everything in this list as 100% accurate for what will be in release or anything. I'm just a forum moderator collecting info, and don't forget Devs can and tend to change ideas mid-work. Anything added in the prior update will be BLUE / Prior Update 04/11/12 at 1:00pm EST Anything added most recently will be Green / Most Recent Update 04/12/12 at 10:32am EST It has been stated that... - Community and Development - Contests will be held on the forum, and Tiy is open to many ideas for prizes, including a player having an in game npc modeled after them. In fact there was already a contest to have a player designed enemy added in game. And all of the winners got theirs into the game! While no Beta test is running at the moment, one is possible in the future. And if a beta test is run, they will be choosing players from the members that have been most active in the community. (Note) Chucklefish is aiming for a steam release. With all the steam features, like server lists and achievements. But nothing concrete has been announced as officially happening yet. Modding has been discussed and will be available if the coding team has time. (see also in game Mission editing/creation in the Building/Crafting section below.) Tiy plans to have a dedicated team to add updates to the game post-release. Multiplayer, PVP and Servers - Server owners will be able to limit joining players to using new characters and/or can also allow existing characters to join as well. How they are being limited (Either tracking minimum Item Levels, or simply having brand-new chars with a flag in their save file, for example) is still being discussed. PVP will be in the game, and there will most likely be pre-generated Arena Asteroids for organized game modes which will automatically keep score for you, etc. The entire universe of experiences will be available in both Single player and Multi-player. Servers will be able to hold as many players as it can based on its power, and internet speed. Server runners will launch their own station save file and other players will be able to join based on the character limiting in place on the server. While the feature will not be available at release, the goal is for servers is to be able to run a MOD and have all clients who join it automatically have the added content from the MOD sent to them. And Servers themselves are planned to also be able to toggle a players use of custom config files to prevent them if so desired. The games current netcode is already working, being called "smooth and seemless." - Rho Controls and Players - Left and Right Mouse Buttons will allow dual wielding weapons/items without having to switch between them What the Death Penalty will be has not been set in stone at this time. Possibly a monetary loss. Weapons can also be one handed or two handed. Some items require Battery Power. (This games MP equivalent from what it seems.) If the player is attacked while blocking with a shield they will take a small percentage (depending on the level of the shield) of regular damage that’s applied to the players health bar as white “recoverable” health (images). This white health will automatically regenerate at end of battle if you do not take a direct hit. After successfully blocking, the player has a chance to counter attack the enemy to do a guaranteed critical hit. Blocking multiple attacks in a row will increase your counter attacks crit damage. There will be enemy attacks that are unblockable. Shield stats and appearance will also be procedurally generated. Players can crouch (unknown control) and "walk" by holding shift and go into 'sneak mode' and walk by enemies without being seen. 'Sneak items' are in the game, and add to your chances of successfully sneaking. Sneaking in PVP is still being discussed. 0-9 will quick switch left hand item, and Shift+0-9 will switch out right hand. The view area can be increased and decreased using the arrow keys to give yourself a better idea of your surroundings. Possible zoom minimum's and max's will be limited in final game. Holding "LEFT CTRL" allows you to pan your current veiw around with the mouse a certain distance. Tiy states that it is possible items will increase your pan range. He says this will be important for sniper rifles so you can see further to find your targets. Items - Items are procedurally generated not only in visual style but in stats, offering bountiful variations of just one weapon possible to be discovered, shared with friends and remembered. There will be vanity slots to alter your appearance, and many worn items will also be procedurally generated in appearance making sure most players will not look the same. Many strange and wonderful outfits will be available, ranging from a Knights armor to a space suit. Painting of weapons and armor for customization has been discussed/planned. Tech slots for items such as Jet Packs, Short Range Teleporters and Stomp Boots are available to the players. There will be many materials to mine. Including "...shiny things..." - Rho Some weapons will have charge times before firing, like a chargeable cannon. There will be tools that are useful in combat. The game currency is called Pixels. Your role in a party/team will be determined by what items you have and gear you wear and will require so much different gear to offer any specific gain as that role that it cant be changed on the fly, instead you will change at your starbase/homeworld where its all stored. Healing items, tools (like a placeable/toss-able field generator that increases damage of all weapon fire that passes through it.) and gear will be available so you can be in a support role such as a healer. A Flashlight you can aim with your mouse. Many items will be placeable directly ON the background so you wont have to always attach a torch to the "player layer" walls. There will be Flashlight mods for some weapons. - "Rho_" Items will have an outline color in the UI to show their rarity. If you look in the lighting demo video you will see 3 items are in green hot-bar boxes. Background Objects, such as furniture and boxes are drawn/styled in a way to give them an appearance of depth, as they sit at an angle making them look 3D on a 2D plane. Chairs, Tables, Stairs and Background Windows are already in the game. Stairs have been verified to be fully interactable in the current build of the game. Background computer screens are animated adding a lot of ambience to the game. They also give off a faint glow that flickers slightly if no other light is nearby. Enemies / Plants / Creatures - Humanoid enemies will appear. Many will be grouped into teams to appear as if they are working together. Creatures can be cataloged by players so they can look back on the strange and wonderful things they have discovered. You can also click a plant (Using your Electronic Logbook) to find/store information about it as well to see if they have any use as materials. Creatures can be caught and trained to help you fight. These creatures will have stats such as defense, attack damage, speed, which will increase will kills. They can also be trained to fly or swim, etc. This will be able to be done when the creature is at low health. There will be bosses. Enemies can chuck dirt at you, displacing blocks. Enemy behavior will play an integral role in how you defeat them, much like in megaman/castlevania. Enemy Appearance, like weapons, will be highly variable. Some appearances will be less common and offer players a different drop of rarer quality. Touching (most) enemies in Starbound won’t damage the player directly, instead enemies must go through an attack animation to damage the player. Humanoid enemies will be able to use shields and many creatures may have natural shields. Enemies use line of sight (already confirmed in game at this stage.) If they see you they become aggressive and are no longer able to be "walked by". Unlike neutral/passive monsters that can be walked beside without the player being harmed or attacked. Later on, when modding is available, modding new creatures will be easier as each creature will have a config file where you can dictate all of its behaviors with tagwords like, "capturable" and "passive". Trees are going to procedurally generated so their appearance won't always be static sameness. Trees can also be replanted on other worlds that have a completely different eco system. Playable Races - The team has announced they plan on adding multiple playable races. The following races have been shown off as playable. The actual names of such races has yet to be announced, so I will put the "earth version" names here. Humans Apes Movement and Physics - Slopes have been implemented, and this allows much more free/fluid movement for players and things like vehicles. Aiming is handled with the mouse, with WASD being movement. Liquid physics beyond water have been planned. This includes acid, and oil which will be all 'goopy'. No falling damage is in the current Dev build, but they plan to add it. It wont be limited to just players suffering from it, enemies will also be hurt by it. Water will have pressure, so if too much water is spawned in a small area, it will shoot out when a hole is made by the player. This of course means you should be careful when digging out a water pocket. Water will equalize. Planets Created procedurally based on coordinates. Coordinates will always create the same world, so you can share with friends. Some coordinates will not actually have a planet like in real life. So there should be a lot of empty space between planets. Navigation between worlds will take place via a star map (non-graphical). You will then take a Dropship to the planet, and return to the station later via the same dropship. At this time a set max world size limit has been implemented. However the engine supports generating worlds of all sizes including an 'infinite size world' that may or may not be available in game. "we're wondering if we should limit it at all" - Tiy Worlds that are not infinite in size will loop around, so if you travel far enough you will end up back at your start area, as if the planet is a real sphere. Worlds could possibly become completely destroyable in time, but as of now plans are in place to make it possible to call orbital strikes upon the surface of a planet. Claimed Homeworlds can be renamed. And non-homeworld planets will most likely have 'bookmarks' you can set. Some worlds will have pre-generated story elements, which have been hand crafted with gameplay in mind. Planet based random events will occur. Eventually, post release there will be the possibility of universe wide events. It has been stated by Tiy that it will not only be planets you will visit. Planets day and night cycles will differ based on the planet, some may even be eternally dark or eternally light. Acid rain has been mentioned, which may actually eat away at player constructions during certain quests to protect an injured npc. Homeworlds can be set to not allow explosions to prevent griefing. Regular planets you won't stay on long enough to care about. Your Space Station - Your station will have five decks, bridge being the top most deck. Will contain a Research Lab. Will be anti-griefable. Building and Crafting - Items will have blueprints that are discovered, or learned from npcs. Reverse engineering has been suggested by fans and the devs seemed interested, but nothing official has been set in stone. Fully alterable terrain, and mining will be in the game, and so will block-by-block construction. A player owned UFO that will allow large scale terrain manipulation/terraforming as been discussed. Many buildings and complex constructions will be placeable as pre-constructed objects, an example given was a weather station. Possibility of a wiring system, and an in game editor that will allow for custom created missions to have your friends play (Most likely a post release addition.). At this time, only basic ship customization has been mentioned. "..to a degree." - Tiy Some simple crafting will be done on person, and more complicated creations will require you be on the space station at the manufacturing station. Tech trees in the research lab on the space station will help you work toward building high end things, like vehicles, mechs, etc. Left clicking will place blocks it in the ground layer (the collision layer in which the player walks), and right clicking will place it in the background. Objects are placed 'in between' the background and ground layer. Blocks have variations in their appearance so they don't all look exactly the same. Especially noticeable in single blocks that are not touching others. NPC's and Quests - NPC's will have needs, and offer you quests, some quests will always be difficult as the highest world danger level will always be tough to the most well geared players. No limit to npc/crew size, but space station has limited space, so you'll have to move people to planet bases too. Some NPC's will be rescuable. And some will literally need to be carried back to your base/station. NPC's will be able to be evicted in an, at this moment, unspecified way. Quests will also be procedurally generated. Speech bubbles from NPC's will be seen by all players. As of right now, Quests are assigned to whole parties, and rewards are given per player. When you talk to an NPC, you may hear them speak with a "Sims-like" made up language. The Following has been stated as NOT being in the game - Food Meter Micro-transactions Cooldowns (Unsure if this is just for weapons, or all items as well.) Item Durability Fog of war Foreground Layer that blocks player sight.